PC Game Fun Time

It’s finally here.  Fallout 3, the sequel I (and many others) have been awaiting for nearly a decade.  In fact, it has even been four years since Fallout 3 was officially announced.

While I have only barely scratched the surface of this game, it is telling that I found it quite difficult to tear myself away long enough to write this mini review.  Like every high profile title these days, Fallout 3 has received pretty much nothing but glowing praise from the mainstream gaming press.  Unlike many of those other titles, it is looking like Fallout 3 may deserve it.

Here are a few of the things I have found notable so far:

• Quest design is damn good.  I haven’t really gone anywhere with the main quest yet, but I have done a couple of the larger side quests.  Both have been very well written and engaging.  They have been a mix of exploration, dialog, combat, and a tad of puzzle solving.
• Dialog options are vastly greater than in Oblivion.  This game has a ton of dialog - I have spent a significant fraction of my time so far just talking to people.  You tend to have several interesting responses to choose from in most situations, as well.
• VATS is a lot of fun.  The much vaunted VATS combat system is actually pretty cool.  Not only is it useful for carefully planning out tougher encounters, it is also quite cinematic.  Watching heads get blown off and then roll down hills has never been so much fun.
• Real time combat is fine, but not amazing.  It does feel very fast and somewhat hard to control.  In the end, it just not of the same quality as a good shooter.  I personally don’t have a problem with this.  Fallout 3 is not a shooter, and if you want to experience some fun combat, just make use of VATS.
• Visuals are great.  Graphics quality is very high and everything looks just like it should.  If I had one word to describe the game’s visuals, it would be “immersive”.
• The game does not hold your hand nearly as much as Oblivion.  It is hard to find a good balance between hand holding and being frustratingly non-specific.  So far, I have found Fallout 3 to do this exceptionally well.

While my impressions are pretty much strictly positive so far, your mileage could vary.  Note that I (obviously) loved the original Fallout games, and also had quite a good time with Oblivion.  I ultimately spent an inordinate amount of time working with mods for Oblivion to fix various flaws.  Many of these were not all that apparent until I had spent quite a bit of time with the game.  So, while my first impressions have been good, I am not completely sold on Fallout 3 yet.